Page 29 of Tilly in Technicolor
This trip is wreaking havoc on my morning routine and I am absolutely not okay with it.
On a normal day, I get up at seven thirty—I don’t believe in lounging around in bed; it makes me feel like a dead trout lying uselessly on an ice block at the market. I then shower, brush my teeth, floss, dress, and am in the kitchen starting the coffee maker (which I prepped the night before) by five after eight. Once that’s brewed, I check my email and social media, and am ready to leave the house by half past.
Today is not a normal day.
Today, I’m at the airport at four a.m., bleary-eyed, rumpled, and waiting on our flight to Milan.
Yesterday, like every other day I’ve been in the presence of one of the Twomley sisters, was a disaster. An emotional one to be precise. On my life, I can’t say why I stayed back from the meeting. I could tell Mona and Amina were annoyed whenI stated, without much room for argument, that I wouldn’t be going with them.
But something about seeing Tilly so upset…
Actually, no. That’s not quite right. It wasn’t something Isawso much asfelt.Hurt radiated off her skin like the sting of standing too close to a fire, and it did something odd to my system, creating a sharp ache in my chest and a twist in my stomach.
Quite annoying, honestly, and it made me shut down in a way.
But Tilly, of course, had to go and ask hundreds of questions that I didn’t have answers to instead of us both just sitting in that hotel room in peace. Then she went running off. Again.
She’ll be the death of me, I swear.
When Mona and Amina got back a few hours later, they told me that the meeting had been shite and they hadn’t secured a contract. They made it clear that they wanted me at the next meeting to drive home different branding and marketing concepts (and also drop my Instagram handle “subtly” as if I have the slightest idea how subtlety works).
Tilly didn’t show back up until later into the night when I was already tucked into bed, and I pretended to be asleep when she tiptoed into the room. As she fluttered about with failed quietness, I couldn’t stop thinking of exactly where she was in the suite, like a little magnet tugged at my mind as she moved from one spot to the next. I have no bloody clue what that was all about but it certainly made me more alert than tired.
And then when I finallywouldstart to drift off to sleep, nonsensical things kept popping in my head like the shape of her hands. The way she always seems on the verge of laughing, like she’s enjoying some brilliant joke with herself. And those three blasted freckles on her left cheek, the color I can’t quite place taunting me every time she smiles. Absolutely ridiculous.
My virtually sleepless night is what I blame my muddled head on this morning as I go through security and roll my carry-on to the gate.
We board without issue and the flight to Milan is over before I know it.
Squeezing into an overpacked train, we ride the metro to our hotel in a cheaper part of the city, having a few hours to kill before our meeting with a boutique chain called Lumina.
Mona has Tilly and me sharing a room connected to hers again, and I pretend not to internally flip out over this.
Why, why,whydoes it feel so weird to share a space with Tilly? I’ve shared rooms with my sister before. And Marcus and Micah. My mums even. That was alwaysfinebut this feelsweirdand I can’t pin down the reason.
As soon as I drop my bag on the floor, I make a quick escape to the (extremely small) balcony attached to our room, gulping down air.
Balconyis a generous term—it’s more like a rusted piece of metal that I have to stand sideways on so my feet aren’t dangling perilously over the edge—but it gets me some distance from Tilly and the peculiar tug she has on my psyche. I lean my elbows on the dodgy railing then bury my head in my hands, letting out a quiet groan.
What is it about this blasted girl that has me so unsettled? Is it because I don’t know Tilly well? Because she’s constantly bursting with one emotion or another I can’t fully grasp?
Her blazing grin flashes across my mind and I shove the image away. Why does that keep happening to me?
Lifting my head, I focus on the colors sprawling in front of me. The shingled roofs are Pantone 7523, a burnt orange… a similar hue to the dress Tilly wore yesterday. Which seems like a wholly useless thing to remember. A wispy cloud in thedistance is darker than the others. Pantone 651, a soft gray blue. Just a few shades lighter than Tilly’s storm-cloud eyes.
What ishappening? I groan and shake my head, trying to dislodge Tilly from whatever lobe she’s burrowed into. I blink a few times then widen my eyes, scanning the horizon with unparalleled focus. It doesn’t make a difference. Any color I home in on somehow flows right back to Tilly and my stomach gets this awful falling feeling.
That’s it. Time to google.
After searching for medical conditions that explain sleeplessness, ruminating thoughts, stomach upset, flushing, and heart palpitations, I finally pull myself out of an internet spiral that has me convinced I’m suffering from some sort of brain-eating amoeba. With a sigh, I lock my phone and bang the corner of it against my forehead.
I’ve stalled out here so long my twisted legs are starting to cramp, and I don’t have much choice but to go inside.
Tilly is sitting on the floor, back pressed against the dresser and tongue between her teeth as she types furiously on her laptop. She’s so engrossed in whatever she’s working on, she doesn’t notice my reappearance into the room. She’s planted herself next to my backpack and suitcase, and I slowly cross the space toward her, leaning down to grab my bag.
I glance at her computer, watching the words fly across the screen.
“What’s that?” I ask, nodding my chin toward her laptop.
